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Ophelia Braham
Ophelia Braham was backstory element for Morgaine and Sieg Braham in the Medieval game, and appeared in person later in backstory fics and post-game side fics. She is a half-elf, and works as a diplomat and translator for the city of Nid'aigle. She also operates as a freelance linguist and translator for hire on the side, speaking Elvish, Kythian, and Low Courdonian fluently, and Lyellian conversationally. She is in the process of learning to speak Dwarven. Backstory Ophelia was the third child born to the elven knight Belial Braham and his human wife, Morgaine. One of her older brothers had already died by the time she was born, but Ophelia's other brother, Sieg, would become her best friend growing up. Ophelia was extremely close to her mother, and often regarded Morgaine as the strongest person in the world. Ophelia needed this strength, since she was often the victim of conservative prejudice for her half-blood status. When she began to experience infatuations and crushes as a teenager, she was generally rejected for being half-elf (or half-human, depending on which race the object of her affections was). This would lead her to have some self-esteem issues with regards to romantic pursuits, and she often considered herself unattractive and doomed to a life of loneliness. Fortunately her family was generally able to support and distract her form these woes. Ophelia inherited her mother's intelligence, but unlike Morgaine she was bookish and academic. She didn't want to be a merchant, preferring the allure of a more intellectual career path. Having grown up her entire life speaking both Kythian and Elvish, Ophelia became interested in linguistics as an early teenager, though at first it was just one of many topics she spent her free time researching. When Ophelia was fourteen, however, her world was flipped on it's head. Her father was killed by a dragon, and her brother was near-fatally burned in the same battle. The loss of her father and Sieg's horrific injuries horrified Ophelia. The smell of ash and burning things that permeated the Nid'aigle infirmary for weeks, combined with the images of her brother's wounds, left Ophelia with a deeply ingrained phobia of fire and the smell of smoke and ash. In spite of her own emotional distress, Ophelia forced herself to stay calm and confident for the sake of her brother. Morgaine was deeply in mourning, and Sieg was traumatized, so Ophelia took it upon herself to take over running the family and keeping them all sane. Two years passed like this, and eventually Sieg was able to get enough control of himself back to at least pretend he was okay- even if he really wasn't. This facade fooled their mother, who was still badly broken from Belial's death. Morgaine decided to leave Nid'aigle permanently, to get away from the painful memories of Belial's death and give her children some space to move on with their lives without her grief dragging them down. Ophelia was horrified, and confronted her mother about it, trying to convince her that Sieg was not ''okay and still needed her support. When Morgaine refused to listen, the two of them had a very unpleasant falling out. Morgaine's departure left Ophelia with only one person left that she really trusted- Sieg. However, Sieg was still a mess of phobias, trauma, and self-accusation, and wasn't really in a position to afford emotional support to anybody. So Ophelia put a brave face on, and continued to do her best to keep herself and her brother going. She took on a job as a diplomat and translator, regularly parlaying for the elves to the humans of Corvus. This would go on for about seven years before another great change came into Ophelia's life. South of Nid'aigle, on the southernmost border of Kyth, was the rival nation of Courdon. Courdon had a very oppressive culture, and regularly sent mercenary raiders into Kyth to kidnap Kythian citizens to drag back to Courdon as slaves. The elves were a favorite target for this, as their long lifespan would allow them to last many human generations without needing to be replaced by new stock to be broken in. The elves, consequently, had a very deep loathing for Courdon and a tremendous sympathy towards it's slaves. They tried to help runaway slaves whenever the unfortunates happened upon Nid'aigle, but they were hampered by a language barrier. Very few of the elves even spoke Kythian- none of them knew Courdonian. Ophelia decided to take her study of linguistics further, and learn Courdonian so that she could communicate with the escapees. However, she was somewhat stymied by the discovery that there were in fact, two dialects spoken in Courdon- High Courdonian, which was the language of the nobility, and Low Courdonian, the language of the peasants and slaves. Slaves instinctively cowered away from anyone who spoke High Courdonian, assuming automatically that the person was a slave lord. To better help them, Ophelia wanted to speak in the slave dialect, so that the fearful former slaves would be more inclined to trust her. However, none of the official language tutors in Kyth could teach it to her- they all knew the High dialect, the one that was necessary to know for diplomatic purposes. Sieg told his commander, Anri Hasek, about Ophelia's intentions. Anri revealed to Ophelia that knew a secret that could help- the Jade fireknights, phoenix riding soldiers, covertly undertook patrol flights to search for slave hunters and runaways. While these patrols were technically illegal, since the Kythian treaty with Courdon required that slave hunters be permitted to find runaways and any known runaways be turned over to Courdon, the fireknights didn't really care. Anri didn't know how successful these patrols were, but she was fairly certain that if anyone could put Ophelia in contact with someone that knew Low Courdonian, it was them. Anri put Ophelia in touch with the fireknight general, who turned her over to Lieutenant Anders Escalus. Anders was skeptical of Ophelia at first, but she was able to win his trust, and he told her that he would "look into it." The next day, Anders contacted her again, revealing that his own second in command was an escaped Courdonian slave. The reason he'd been so roundabout with her was because he didn't want to reveal too much without his second's permission, and potentially draw the ire of slave hunters. Anders had spoken to the man, one Cai Shahar, and Cai had agreed to teach Ophelia Low Courdonian... ''More to come. Participated *Candy - Ophelia is born, and her two year old brother Sieg is introduced to her for the first time. *No Nap! - Ophelia is an infant in this story, serving more or less as a cameo. *Improvising - Again, a very brief cameo, this time for Ophee at one year old. *We've Always Been Together - Three year old Ophee is suffering from a bout of flu, and the poor thing isn't doing so well. Fortunately, her brother Sieg and her parents are there to comfort her. *The Great Cookie Princess - Ophelia finally gets a proper appearance with real dialog! In this fic Ophee is four years old, and places princess to her brother's minstrel while daddy Belial supervises. *Summer Storms - Four year old Ophelia is woken in the dead of night by a peal of thunder, and seeks comfort from the frightening violence of the storm outside. Fortunately, Sieg is more than happy to provide. *Old Grievances - Morgaine goes to visit her hometown of Cypress Springs with her children in tow. Unfortunately, a five year old Ophelia runs afoul of the extremely conservative town priest, who calls her a mongrel abomination. Hurt and confused, she asks her mother about the incident, and Morgaine is Not Happy. *Mama Bear - Nine year old Ophelia makes the less than enlightened decision to accompany her idiot brother into the woods for an "adventure." The two kids pay the price for their bravado by being attacked by a bear, just barely escaping with their lives. *Smashed - A teenage Ophelia cameos briefly at the beginning, arguing with her brother Sieg. *First Love - Morgaine discovers that the teenage Ophelia has a puppy crush on one of the local villagers in Kolanth. Though initially the discovery is treated with humor, it takes a turn for the sad when Ophelia admits that she is harboring deep insecurities about her possibly romantic life because of being a hybrid. *Waning Hours - Ophelia goofs off with her brother Sieg before he heads off on his first mission as a squire- to fight a dragon. *Fault and Blame - Ophelia is present when Morgaine receives the news of Belial's death in the dragon fight. Later the half-elf tries to comfort her brother, but the attempt backfires in a frightening and dramatic way. *Broken Bridges: Part One - Ophelia discovers that Morgaine is planning to leave Nid'aigle and start a new life in Medieville. Hurt by this apparent betrayal, Ophelia gets into an argument with Morgaine, ultimately leading to a nasty falling out. *A Chance to Help - Part 1 - Ophelia travels to Solis, hoping to find someone from whom she can learn Low Courdonian, so that she can help runaway slaves from Courdon who come through Nid'aigle. She is eventually put in contact with the fireknight Cai Shahar, a former slave who is willing to help her. As the lessons proceed, the two gradually become friends. Collab fic between Shinko and Tiger. *A Chance to Help - Part 2 - Ophelia and Cai's friendship deepens. The two of them attend the annual Solis festival called the Restoration of the Walls. Ophelia pulls Cai into some shenanigans, but to his own surprise Cai doesn't mind the nonsense too much. Opehlai opens up to the fireknight a little, confessing some of her insecurities to him and becoming more overtly affectionate. *A Chance to Help - Part 3 - Ophelia wakes up to find all of Solis cloaked in smoke from wildfires raging in Kine. The smoke is very triggering for Ophelia, reminding her of the injuries her brother sustained from the battle with the dragon that killed their father. Cai is sent off to fight the fires, making Ophelia even more frantic with worry. When he finally returns, he is moved to intense sympathy and comforts her. Ophelia's emotional walls crumble and she opens her heart to Cai completely, leaning on him for emotional support and giving him her complete trust. *A Chance to Help - Part 4 - At Cai's suggestion, Ophelia meets his phoenix Tamir so that the bird can help Ophelia to desensitize to fire and smoke. Tamir, however, has other plans, and alongside Anders' phoenix Mirja decides to try to forcefully push the fireknight and the half-elf together. After the antics are brought under control, Cai and Ophelia have a conversation in which Cai accidentally upsets Ophelia. This results in her admitting that she feels like she's hurting Cai, and him finally telling her a little about the uncertain emotions he's been fighting against where she is concerned. *A Chance to Help - Part 5 - Ophelia and Cai have their first session with Tamir lighting on fire, though they push a little too hard for the first go and Cai has to call an early halt to it. Ophelia, badly frazzled, clings to Cai for comfort. In the process, she finally realizes that she has in fact fallen in love with Cai, and after she admits this to him he admits he loves her too. After discussing the implications of this, the two decide to try a relationship. *Bruises - Ophelia and Cai are in the library doing some research for Ophelia's lesson's in Low Courdonian, when they are caught acting shippy by the Jade's elven adviser Peter. Trolling ensues. Collaborative story between PFA, Tiger, and Shinko. *A Chance to Help - Epilogue - Months after part five, Ophelia and Cai's relationship is doing well. They are noticeably easy with each other, and make plans for Cai to eventually visit Ophelia in Nid'aigle. *Wishing You Were Here - In the late summer of 1311, Ophelia and Cai exchange letters from across Corvus while trying to deal with major stress and upheaval in their respective homes. Roleplay with Tiger. *Sweet As Honey - In the early summer of 1312, Ophelia invites Cai to visit Nid'aigle just in time for the summer solstice festival. *Broken Bridges: Part Two - Takes place during the maingame timeline. Ophelia learns that Sieg has gotten a letter from Morgaine asking him to come to Medieville to help her. Ophelia tries to dissuade Sieg from doing so, but he is insistent. * Call to Adventure - Ophelia learns that her brother Sieg is going to be making a trip to Bern with his new friend Orrin. She's happy for him, but a little worried at the same time, because he's the last family she has and she doesn't want him to become distant from her. *Little Siblings, Big Snakes - Ophelia has to travel to Solis to request help from the Jades when nobles in Elacs decide to put a cobra farm near Nid'aigle. She meets Reynold Jade, who is less than enthused about the request, and his brother Joffery Jade. Roleplay with PFA. *Bitter Reunion - Ophelia travels to Medieville as per her promise to Sieg in Call to Adventure, to talk to her mother for the first time in eleven years. Collab fic with Tiger, Maddy, GLQ, and Elcie. Personality Ophelia is a person of many layers who wears many masks depending on what the situation calls for. She can be polite and diplomatic, cheerful, neutrally impassive, or loud and impassioned on a whim. Years of work as a diplomat has allowed her to refine the art of adapting herself to her company. Some traits that are generally present across her personas are a fondness for snark not unlike her mother's, and a rough sense of sympathy. Under all the false personas, however, her real personality is equally complex. She is generally confident and self-assured, not letting much of anything get her down for long and refusing to compromise herself. She is usually very kind, compassionate, and sympathetic, though she has a bit of a temper and it gets the better of her on occasion. Because of her experiences with loss and betrayal, she has a profound appreciation for the people close to her, and would do anything to help those she cares about. She has something of a habit of being too self-sacrificial, often neglecting her own needs and frustrations while trying to look after other people. AUs Bad End Ophelia survives the raid on Nid'aigle in Bad End, escaping with the other Elvish refugees. Cut off from the rest of her family, for a long time she has no idea if Morgaine and Sieg are alive, dead, or enslaved. As of yet little is established about how she escapes or what happens to her afterwards, but it is known that she eventually reunites with her brother. Relationships Cai Shahar Ophelia initially met the runaway slave turned fireknight Cai when she went to Solis looking for someone to teach her Low Courdonian so that she could talk to escaped slaves and teach them about Kyth. Cai, normally reticent with most everyone, respected Ophelia's altruistic goals. As he got to know her and opened up to her Ophelia found herself warming to the reserved but kindhearted man in return. The more time they spent together, the more they came to respect one another's strengths- and their empathy for each other's weaknesses and insecurities deepened as well. Eventually Cai developed something of a crush on Ophelia, becoming more and more flustered by her affections towards him and laboring under a smothered longing for deeper intimacy with her that the repressed former slave didn't quite understand. It wasn't long before she began to return his feelings, culminating in the two of them confessing their love for each other and agreeing somewhat timidly to pursue a romantic relationship. Ophelia has a deep sense of respect for Cai's strength of will and open caring, and appreciates the casual intimacy that the touch-loving fireknight brings to their relationship. Morgaine Braham As a child Ophelia was very close to her mother, near hero-worshiping Morgaine for her courage, fortitude, and refusal to compromise for anyone or anything. She almost never saw her mother express real vulnerability or sadness, and thus had the somewhat unrealistic impression that Morgaine was flawless. Upon Belial's death, when Morgaine retreated deeply into mourning and stopped paying much attention to the world, Ophelia was given a very nasty wake-up call. She remained convinced that if she only gave her mother time and space, Morgaine would bounce back, and took over running the family and trying to keep everyone together and sane while the locksmith mourned. However, when Morgaine was unable to get over her grief and decided to leave Nid'aigle, the pedestal Ophelia had placed her on was well and truly broken. The two had a nasty falling out over this, leaving Ophelia bitter and Morgaine heartbroken. It would take eleven years for Ophelia to finally, at Sieg's prompting, seek out her mother and reconcile with her. They're finally on good terms again, though still a lot more distant than they were when Ophelia was a child. Belial Braham Like her brother, Ophelia loved her dad dearly. She was never as philosophical as he and Sieg were, preferring her mother's more practical approach to life, but she still had a lot of respect for Belial and was willing to listen when he offered her advice or opinions. Of the Brahams she was able to keep herself together the most in the wake of her father's death, but that doesn't mean she wasn't affected by it. She simply throttled down her own emotional reaction because, in her eyes, it was more important to be there for her mother and brother than to grieve herself. She misses her father deeply, and often wishes she had his patience and capacity for calm. Sieg Braham Ophelia and her brother were best friends growing up, being the only children each other had to play with. Like any siblings they bickered, and occasionally even fought, but they could never stay angry at each other very long. Upon Belial's death, however, their relationship changed dramatically. Between the trauma of being near-fatally burned, trapped for hours, and watching their father die, Sieg was barely clinging to his sanity. Ophelia made herself into her brother's emotional anchor, letting him lean on her and taking it upon herself to keep an eye on him. However, the dependance wasn't entirely one-way; being the last member of her family Ophelia had left, she was almost as emotionally dependent on him as he was on her. While she wanted him to recover and be able to stand on his own two feet, on some level she was also afraid of that happening because it might mean he would become distant from her. She was finally able to reconcile this fear upon reconnecting with their mother. Though she is still a little sad to see her brother drifting away as his mental health improves after a few months in Bern with Orrin Ironbeard, she is also happy for him and doesn't begrudge it. Peter Jade They possibly get to know each other? Stay tuned! Jonathon Accipiter \ o / Priest who isn't a jerkwad to her! Rosalie Dylas When they first met, Ophelia and Rosalie had similar mistaken impressions about each other- both thought that the other was a "replacement" for them in Morgaine's affections. As such there was a great deal of mutual jealousy and resentment between them before they even spoke a word to each other. Ophelia initially tried to be politely indifferent to Rosie, but the keymaker launched right into being confrontational. The two of them got into a nasty fight, which culminated in Morgaine running off from the emotional strain. Eventually Rosie and Ophelia agreed to make peace with one another for Morgaine's sake, however it is highly unlikely the two will ever be friends. The tolerate each other at best, and are caustically passive-aggressive at worst. Gavin Monfort Though Ophelia knew Gavin as her father's friend for most of her life, she got to know him somewhat better after Belial's death when both of them were trying to keep Sieg sane in the wake of it. She has a lot of respect for Gavin, and is deeply grateful to him for his friendship with their family. Trivia * Ophelia is named after the character of the same name from Shakespeare's Hamlet. Category:Medieval charactersCategory:Non-game charactersCategory:Nid'aigle Characters Category:Corvids